A View Of The Human Condition From The Left

Pushing Yourself To Power—A Practical Fitness Program

This is part of a series of postings on fitness, health, and dieting. For a chronological list of these articles, please click here.

This book, “Pushing Yourself To Power,” (PYTP) is my favorite book on the subject of exercise and fitness. It is well worth the investment, but only if you get it with the spiral binding. Stay away from the standard binding.

Oddly enough, the paper and the pictures are top quality, but the standard binding is terrible, and the book falls apart in no time.

However, the spiral binding is super and worth the extra five dollars.

This book is actually an updated and modernized version of the old Charles Atlas course. I remember seeing Charles Atlas ads in the comic books and boys magazines during the 1950s. Charles Atlas was the United States best known exercise and fitness figure in mid-20th-century United States.

Those comic-book ads were a bit cheesy, but they stood out among a plethora of other cheesy ads for secret encoding rings, maps to treasure, magnets, fossils, baseball cards, and other items of interest to young kids.

Atlas’s ads showed how a skinny 95-pound hormone-laden young fellow is at a beach with his girlfriend.

Then a well-built muscular bully kicks sand in the young lad’s face, attacking his manhood, and walks off with the admiring girl. Seething with anger and humiliation, the young fellow sends away for the weekly Charles Atlas mail-order course. Charles Atlas said “Let me make a man out of you,” and our young lad, burning with determination, follows the 12-week course.

Some months later, our young hero walks back to the beach, buff body, and gets his girl back. This was just the sort of thing that appealed to those legions of young pubescent males who secretly feel uncertain, awkward, and gangly.

Despite the cheesiness of the ad, the Atlas course was quite good, with solid principles. And John Peterson, referred to by his friends and students as “JP,” has taken the Atlas course, along with similar ones, augmented it with a lot of his own ideas and the ideas of a lot of other famous people. I have the old Charles Atlas course, and JP has certainly made it much more understandable in today’s world with absolutely super photographs in PYTP

Charles Atlas, along with people like Earl Liederman, Eugen Sandow, Bernarr MacFadden, and other were part of what was known as “physical culture” movement in the United States during the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th century. JP has managed to repackage a lot of these concepts into a well thought-out and well laid-out method he calls Transformetrics.

In the first part of this book JP gives the profiles of a lot of these influences and explains where he got these ideas. He certainly gives credit to his influences.

I like this approach for a variety of reasons that I’ll go into later. But for now, I’ll only cover a very few basic concepts of building muscle strength and fitness:

A muscle gains strength by working against resistance. It does not know if the resistance comes from a weight, a spring, a machine, or anything else.

A muscle is a collection of muscle fibers that contract in response to an order from the brain that travels down a nerve to that fiber.

A muscle moves a body part by contracting, not by expanding. For example, if you bend your arm, a muscle group on the front part of the upper arm (the biceps) contracts while opposing muscles relax. If you straighten your arm, a muscle group on the back of the upper arm (the triceps) contracts while opposing muscles contract. Muscles only contract. Body parts, such as the tongue or the penis, which expand do not do so by muscle action but by the effect of blood engorgement.

Transformetrics and related systems do not use external apparatus such as machines or weights to provide the resistance. Instead, such systems utilize bodyweight or resistance supplied by other muscle groups.

Transformetrics is not the only system of this type. But in my opinion, one cannot go wrong using it as a base for one’s physical fitness regimen, as I do. And the Transformetrics system has a forum dedicated to this modality of exercise. Although some of the forum members have what I consider to be pretty off-the-wall ideas, one can learn a lot there. My advice if you visit is to take what is of value to you and leave the rest alone. There are some very knowledgeable people there as well as a few who have some pretty strange ideas.

John Peterson himself tries very hard to get his students to find their own answers, specifically suited to their own needs, their own goals, their own strengths and weaknesses. He attempts to lay out certain principles, give examples, and then wants you to adapt to suit yourself. In other words, he’s not at all dogmatic.

His motto is “Be Your Own Best Trainer,” and he tries very hard to help his students become their own best trainers.

JP and I have had many conversations on the phone, and we have exchanged many posts on his Transformetrics forum. I happen to be an atheist and very far to the left politically, facts he is well aware of. However, I never felt that he judged me harshly. He tells me that prays for me, and that’s fine with me. I just take the attitude that this is JP’s way of wishing the very best for me, as I wish the very best for him. We all have our outlooks, and intelligent and sincere people can disagree.

In subsequent postings, I’ll get more specific about how you can develop your own exercise and fitness program, what some of the other fitness modalities are, and a bit about another exercise method I sometimes use, the HeavyHands system. I’ll also talk about Greg Magnan’s wonderful VRT Megapump system, which shares a lot of the same principles as Transformetrics, although it comes at the principles from a slightly different angle.. Most importantly, perhaps I can encourage you to do a bit of exercise in a fashion that you find enjoyable, an activity to look forward to.

I hope I would not get banned from the Transformetrics forum. I would rather focus on the positive aspects than harp on the few negative comments that occasionally get posted there. There are many positive contributions made on that site.

As one might expect, there are far more “lurkers” than actual forum participants. They must be getting some good stuff from that site.

Another thing about that site is the wonderful layout. Their webmaster is an absolute master of the Drupal software used on that site.

Alan, you are going to have a great blogging career as you have an amazing writing style and lots of wisdom from your years on planet earth. Blogging is a wonderful journey of self-discovery and giving service by sharing your knowledge and thoughts for the cyberspace world to enjoy.

I wish you the best but will give you one caveat and that is to be careful what you attempt to post from your blog on the Transformetrics’ website. My posts were edited to remove my blog links and I was eventually banned when I attempted to post some photos of me with an explanation given that I was self-promoting myself, sort of what you did when posting this blogflection on that site.

I’ll check back periodically to learn from your interesting blogflections. We definitely are going down the same superhighway of life in the fast lane except you are on the left side of the highway and I’m on the right side.

I’ve been critical of some of your writing in the past, but I’ve always admired your kindness and thoughtfulness. Looking at this site, I see we have much in common. While you are an atheist and I’m a Christian, our views are not dis-similar. (All religions have great diversity of opinions.) Your list of websites includes one of my bookmarked sites, “Jesus is a Liberal”.

Alan, another interesting blog. As you know I was one of those banned from the Transformetric site for questioning the truth of something that was posted there.
However Transformetrics works, which is obvious by John Peterson’s build, as do other modalities of exercise and the forum and John’s books are very well designed.

I’ve always admired your studious and comtemplative style of writing; quietly objective, well-researched, and always diplomatic to the opposing points of view, without allowing yourself to be reduced to a written ‘quarrel.’ Always thought provoking.

And I want to share my gratitude for your making a link to my VRT System, which surprised me when I first read your blog.

I too have a blog, but do not always feel compelled to write down my thoughts on a daily basis or as often as some of my other cyber-fitness brothers. I most often enjoy reading others.

I wonder if anyone ever thought of an “Isometrics” Federation, you know, a lot of people peek into all of the forums because there seems to be controversy, one that I have steered clear of and not been involved in in any way and will continue to stay out of. It’s almost reminiscent of the Hoffman/Weider feud in a way. All I can say is Randy Roach’s “muscle smoke and mirrors” should be read though there is not enough on the Iso part and word to the wise, Randy has his own (raw) meat Weston Price foundation biases, grain of salt.

Hi, Alan!
Just found your blog accidentally and I must say you got a new follower from second 1. I love the way you write and how you seem to be able to turn anything into a really entertaining experience.

About Transformetrics and John Peterson, I first knew about him when I got a copy of his book “Isometric Power Revolution” (check it out, it’s a great book). He clearly knows his stuff and the guy looks great being one year older than my father (I am 31 btw). But it seems he is taking his christian conservative views a few steps further lately. Check out these 2 threads at the Transformetrics forums:

You probably know that Kirk Cameron, who John praises in his post, is one of the most conservative people you can find in both social and religious matters. Not only he disapproves homosexuality, but he even denies scientific knowledge like evolution (which has been long proven true btw) and is what I can’t help but call a mean-spirited religious wacko.
I am always willing to respect other people’s ideas as long as they don’t imply attacks on other people’s rights. Looks like John and his crowd are taking that way. Greg Newton’s comment on homosexuality and AIDS just scared the hell out of me (and I am not gay just in case you wonder; I am happily married to a woman and have 2 children, but I believe in other people’s right to be happy).

I was also banned from Peterson’s forum, but I don’t keep any hard feelings. It’s his forum and he can do whatever he pleases with it. But he banned me for asking others what they thought about the so-called apocryphal gospels. You know, other accounts of the life of Jesus that the catholic church discarded in the early 5th century. I made the point that anyone interested in the life of Jesus should read them, to get a wider view. My comment was approved by the moderators and even got some replies, but when John saw it he immediately banned me and, what’s worse, he deleted my post. Although I am an atheist and I am also on the far left just like you, I swear that my post was not mean spirited in any way. But that’s not what John thought. It’s clear that disagreement and debate are not tolerated in that forum. But as I said, that’s fine with me. It’s his property and he rules it the way he wants.

Thanks for writing me from the historic city of Barcelona, in Catalunya.

I have been aware of what has been happening in the Transformetrics forum, and my reactions have been similar to yours. You can read a bit about my personal experience by clicking here.

Like you, I bear them no ill will, think there’s much of value in the Transformetrics method itself, but feel uncomfortable in the Transformetrics forum. In my opinion, the Transformetrics forum has become much less interesting than it was some years ago. A lot of people bear a lot of personal animosity towards John Peterson and the Transformetrics website. While I understand that, I do not share their bitterness.

I also feel that there’s nothing wrong with two people loving each other and forming a relationship, even if they are of the same sex. To me, love and friendship are beautiful. Opposite sex couples who can’t get along, who tear each other down and live in misery are in a much less healthy relationship than the same-sex couple who have a deep supportive friendship and love, who treat each other with dignity and respect. My recently-deceased wife and I had such a relationship, and I see no reason why two men or two women can’t have the same. Like you, I’m heterosexual, but I see nothing unnatural about homosexuality.

Regards,

Alan OldStudentThe Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living — SocratesMy Web Site

I’m not real familiar with Wiled Powerflex Workout. I think that Pushing Yourself To Power is the most complete and all-round of the other three mentioned above. I have the Isometrics and the VRT video, and I also liked both of them quite a bit. If I were to get only one of the three, Pushing Yourself To Power would be it.

I’ve heard good things about a book called Never Gymless, but I’ve not had a chance to see it or use it.

Having said that, I also like the VRT system (discussed elsewhere on this site) and the Isometrics Revolution. The VRT system bases itself on a traditional weightlifting program, but without using weights. It is also reviewed elsewhere here.

So if you’re into the style of exercise advocated by these books, perhaps the most all inclusive would be Pushing Yourself To Power.

If I could contribute my two cents, I’d say Wild Workout / Powerflex is simply the old Charles Atlas ‘Dynamic Tension’ course with a new name and denying its original source. ‘Isometric Power Revolution’ only includes isometric exercises (i.e., contraction without movement).
‘Never Gymless’ by Ross Enamait is pretty good but physically very challenging. You can get in tremendous shape following. It includes a wide array of bodyweight exercises, just like Mark Lauren’s ‘You Are Your Own Gym’. Both are great. VRT is about visualized resistance; voluntary contraction of the muscles while imagining that you’re lifting weights. I’ve been working on that and I can say it works. If you are interested in the mind-muscle connection, there’s Maxick’s 1911 book ‘Muscle Control’, which is in the public domain and can be downloaded here:http://www.maxalding.co.uk/mc-book-english/PDF/Muscle%20Control.pdf